Two Jewish museums set to break ground in Kiev

“If this proposition interests Ukrainian government and Ukrainian Jews then this is a good way for things to start,” says rabbi.

By GIL STERN STERN SHEFLER, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

September 27, 2011 23:39

4 minute read.

Kiev 311 R.
(photo credit: REUTERS)

KIEV – If everything goes according to plan, construction on not one but two
major Jewish museums will begin in Kiev this time next year, Jewish leaders in
Ukraine said last week, although skeptics have their doubts.

The first
museum, which according to its backers is set to break ground in less than 12
months, will be the first comprehensive museum depicting the history of Jews in
the country, which dates back to medieval times.

“We have just received
an offer from the city for land,” said Ukrainian lawmaker and businessman
Oleksandr Feldman, who is helming the project. “We would like to find an
architect and start construction next September, and the mayor of Kiev is
supportive of the museum.”

There are already several Jewish museums in
the eastern European country. In Odessa, the local Jewish museum tells the story
of the city’s fabled Jewish past while the childhood home of Shalom Aleichem in
Pereiaslav displays an exhibit on the life and times of the Jewish humorist.
Still, the country that was once home to a large portion of Jewry and where an
estimated 100,000 Jews remain does not have an official Jewish museum, something
Feldman wants to change.

“I plan to invest my money in it and call others
to join me,” the Jewish businessman said at a gathering battling anti-Semitism
that he organized in Kiev.

Germany, one of the potential funders of such
a project, has expressed an interest in the idea.

“We stand behind the
idea to build this museum and support it,” said German lawmaker Petra Pau, who
was among those invited by Feldman to attend the event.

The second big
museum planned in Kiev is slated to be built near Babi Yar, the ravine where
33,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis 70 years ago.

“It will be like the
Ukrainian Yad Vashem and focus on the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman,
a supporter of the initiative. “It will tell the story of the Jews who were
murdered by the Nazis.”

The rabbi who is one of three claimants to the
title of chief rabbi of Ukraine said two of the wealthiest men in the country,
Jewish businessmen Igor Kolomoisky and Vadim Rabinovich, have shown an interest
in the project. But this may be a liability as much as it is a
benefit.

“They are out of favor with the current government,” said a
participant at the gathering.

Indeed, one can be forgiven for having
doubts that either project will begin on time. Plans to build either a
Jewish museum or community center in or near Babi Yar have hopelessly stalled
for at least a decade.

“We hope next October to start building but I can
only pray that will happen,” Azman said. “Every time there was an objection from
the state or the municipality but this time we’ve bought the land to prevent any
kind of opposition. We have to push hard but nothing worthwhile comes
easy.”

Part of the problem relates to the content of the Babi Yar museum:
Tens of thousands of non-Jews –gypsies, nationalists, political prisoners and
others – were also murdered by the Nazis at the ravine and Ukrainians
authorities are loath to let a museum highlight one group over the
other.

Feldman, too, admitted his museum of Jewish heritage had a long
way to go until it is built.

“I cannot say exactly where and when we will
build but we’re making progress,“ said Feldman, who underwent brit mila at the
age of 42 and views the construction of the museum as a personal
mission.

Despite everyone's best intentions one member of the Jewish
community who attended the gathering in Kiev last week was skeptical either will
be built anytime soon.

“I don’t think much will come of this,” he said,
asking not to be named. “What do you make of all this? They come here and talk
and what comes out of it? Nothing.”

Westerners who snub their noses at
the lengthy and bumpy process might be surprised to hear things aren’t much
different back home. Rabbi Andrew Baker of the American Jewish Committee,
who attended the conference battling anti-Semitism in Kiev, said the series of
“decelerations, resolutions and proclamations” in Kiev mirrored those that led
to the construction of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington.

“It was during the ’70s that president Jimmy Carter first
announced there would be a Holocaust museum,” he recalled. “He then formed a
committee that looked into different locations and it fell on the next president
to decide. For a while it was not at all clear that the museum would be on the
National Mall. They were looking into a building elsewhere and only after a long
search did they settle on that location. Who knew it would be so instrumental to
the Jewish community?”

Baker said gatherings like the one that took place in
Kiev were important in creating the right conditions for the proposed
museums.

“If this proposition interests the Ukrainian government and
Ukrainian Jews then this is a good way for things to start,” Baker
said.

Victora Godik, president of the Ukrainian Union of Jewish Students,
weighed in saying that of Feldman’s two projects this is the one more likely to
be built sooner rather than later because it had something the other did
not.

“It has the support of the government,” she said. “That is great and
it’s the first time that has happened.”

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